Tuesday, July 24, 2012

I talked to Keith Giffen the other day, doing research for another project I'm working on, but later in the conversation he started recounting his experiences on OMAC, a project he clearly enjoyed, and because OMAC has absolutely nothing to do with the article I'm writing, I figured I'd share what he had to say about the series here, since it's turned into process week at old Geniusboy Firemelon productions.

Giffen talked about how he never outlines or thumbnails what he's drawing, and on OMAC, he would take Dan DiDio's plot and then, he says...

I
would go through the book, and, up front, I would do the panels that I don’t
want staring at me when the deadline’s tight. I call them the ‘kitchen sink’
panels, the two-page spreads, whatever. Get that out of the way. So I work out
of order now, but I still don’t outline. I’ll have page 14, and page 18, and
page 20, and now it’s time to put them together.

So, without knowing what he's actually going to draw on pages 1-13, 15-17, and 19, he drew the other pages based on where he thought the big images should go. Then he filled the rest in, almost improvisationally, following DiDio's plot, unless he decided to throw something else in for fun, like when Superman appeared, just because Giffen thought he should pop into the story.

It keeps it spontaneous with
me, because I can surprise myself. And I like to think it translates to the
work and keeps it spontaneous for the reader, and they’re never quite sure what’s
going to happen next.

OMAC's long gone as a New 52 series from DC. But it was fun while it lasted, and Giffen's energetic improvisation was the major part of its charm.

Friday, July 20, 2012

I
wrote my upcoming "When Words Collide" column as kind of a feature
article about Charles Forsman and his new microcomics publishing
venture. Well, I suppose it's about more than that. It's like
Forsman's comic book life story, and everything that led up to him
working in Hancock, writing and drawing books for Fantagraphics, while
he pumps out Risograph-printed minicomics by a bunch of talented
artists. Look for it on Monday at CBR.

But our conversation led in a couple of directions that didn't end up fitting into the column, so here are some outtakes that didn't make it into my piece. First, Charles talking about his process:

It usually does start with writing, usually in the sketchbook. It starts with
paragraphs of what’s going to happen, maybe. Then I break that down into
chapters, with further description, and then I use that one page in a sketch
book, for TEOTFW, and I work very teeny tiny in there.

A lot of cartoonists draw and redraw
and do several drafts, full size…and I’ve been more laborious with my work in
the past…but with this I’m more worried about just telling the story and not
drawing fancy.

Even the original art is small to
keep things quick.

I’ll do thumbnails so tiny no one
else can read them, and I’ll put the dialogue outside. Jason Lutes shared his
process when he was at CCS. He has two little boxes for a page, on one sheet of
paper, and he’ll write the dialogue outside. So that’s how I’ve been working
recently.

It always changes from project to
project. Sometimes I’m loose, and sometimes I need more structure, but that
sort of idea is what I stick to. Quick thumbnails. Because I feel it keeps the
spontaneity. I don’t like to labor over it too much, because I feel it makes
things too stiff.

And here's Charles responding to me when I said something like: "Most people today, if they wanted to do draw something quick and spontaneous for fun, and get it out to readers, would just do a webcomic. But you seem to reject that idea and spend all this time making small physical copies of your comics. Why not just do it all digitally?"

I
personally can’t read stuff on the screen, at my computer.

The
way I tell stories, I need that page. I have so much trouble just determining a
trim size I’m going to use. With a computer there’s so many options. I could do
full color…it just feels too unlimited. I respond to limitations a lot better.
It’s almost like a challenge to tell what I want to tell and do what I want to
do in eight pages.

The
thing that I discovered…serialization is just -- the type of comics I do, everyone’s
worried about the graphic novel, with one big story….small publishers aren’t
printing them any more. Nobody’s buying them. It wasn’t something I even
experimented with, until I accidentally did it with this series. All of a
sudden, I was having cliffhangers, and it was really fun. And people were
coming back month in and month out. I know serialization still goes on with the
superhero comics, but it was something I felt like I had to rediscover for
myself. It seemed like something that was gone from my comics scene. And I love
it. It makes me sad that it’s not around anymore.

There’s
that romantic idea of comics being a throwaway artform, that I still kind of
like. I like that it’s just a dollar and that it’s on copy paper and it’s not
something to really cherish. I really respond to that, that you can tell a
great story without high production values.

About Me

Timothy Callahan is an educator and a writer. He has written books, like Grant Morrison: The Early Years, and edited books like Teenagers from the Future. He used to co-host the weekly Splash Page podcast, but now he mostly spends his free time creating role-playing games like CRAWLJAMMER and the upcoming SUPERWAR.